Get Google Now on any Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich based ROM

Google Now has been making a lot of waves after being unveiled in Google I/O 2012. The intelligent information system is more than just a personal assistant. Unlike other voice assistants, cough cough Siri, Google Now learns about its device owner’s activities and gives suggestions by presenting useful cards.

However, Google Now only supports Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, which is present in less than 0.1% of Android devices, and users having a device with previous Android builds are out of luck. Fortunately, one XDA user has successfully got it working on Android 4.0 based ROMs.

The XDA thread can be found over here. The procedure is very short and all you’ve got to do is edit a line in a system file. But before you get excited please note that first, getting Google Now to work on your ICS based device requires your phone to be rooted and secondly, voice search currently does not work.

Tip: For those who’re getting network error, download this alternate APK, rename it to “velvet.apk” and move it to /system/app folder replacing the previous the old Velvet.apk.